Live Review: Pierce the Veil/Sleeping With Sirens World Tour @ O2 Guildhall, Portsmouth
Ever since the mega hit ‘King For A Day’ brought together the post-hardcore veterans Pierce the Veil and Sleeping With Sirens, they have been continually sharing the stage. Their world tour has brought them around the globe to play some of their biggest shows to date.
Californian ‘mexicore’ rockers Pierce the Veil make their first appearance on stage after a swift hard-hitting performance from support group Issues. The band dramatically enters as their silhouettes appear behind a white sheet hanging in front of the stage bearing their Collide With the Sky album symbol. As the sheet drops they start right into ‘Hell Above’, swiftly followed by ‘Caraphernelia’.
Pierce the Veil’s set is very tight and in sync showing the group’s progression of professionalism as a band. The music stays raw and yet keeps true to their recorded version of the songs. They play a mix of old and new, but if fans are hoping to hear a new track from the band’s upcoming untitled record they aren’t about to receive their wish. During ‘Bulletproof Love’, frontman Vic Fuentes pulls a fan up on stage to sing her the first part of the song. The band finishes out their set with ‘King For a Day’, when Sleeping With Siren’s frontman Kellin Quinn makes his first appearance on stage through a blur of confetti.
Florida’s post-hardcore outfit Sleeping With Sirens make their appearance onstage for the final performance of the night in front of a giant display banner reading ‘Kick Me’, the title of their latest single. As per usual for one of their shows, vocalist Quinn rules the stage, singing through a mop of overgrown hair. In between songs, he comments on how nasty his sweat towel smells, telling the crowd, “you don’t want this, it smells so bad.” He eggs them on waving it around until he throws it out into the audience. Seems to show that if you’re a fan of Pierce the Veil you get a song sung to you, and if you’re a fan of Sleeping With Sirens you get a dirty towel thrown at you.
Sleeping With Sirens plays mainly songs from their newest record Madness and their past record Feel. Very few are played from their older hard-hitting records, in which Quinn does more screaming and rough vocals. Guitarist Nick Martin (ex. Underminded, D.R.U.G.S.) seems to fit in with the members, having only been part of the group for a short while. He fills in much of the rough vocals for the band’s popular ‘If I’m James Dean, Then You’re Audrey Hepburn’, Quinn only adding vocals when needed. The band finishes out their set with an encore of ‘If You Can’t Hang’, but the once ‘emo’ feel they had in their earlier years is gone, now producing a much more mainstream rock sound.
